


all that's left (is to leave)

by rory_the_dragon



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Brian Comes To Munich, Exes to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Past Bad Decisions, previous Established Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 06:46:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17421062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rory_the_dragon/pseuds/rory_the_dragon
Summary: They drive out of Munich in silence.(Brian comes to Munich)





	all that's left (is to leave)

They drive out of Munich in silence.

At first Freddie stays awake in the passenger seat, out of some misguided attempt at penance perhaps, but somewhere around Innsbruck the heavy bruises under his eyes pull him under and he falls asleep against the door of the rental car, arms wrapped around himself as if from the cold. Brian turns the heat up, but the shakes still start.

Freddie has always looked smaller in sleep. All that larger than life energy pared back to gentle sweetness and curled up next to Brian in bed, he could always fit still and snug under a single arm. Brian’s never before thought he looked _less_ when asleep but Freddie is diminished in the seat next to him now. His wrists are dangerously thin, his hair dull. He’s wrapped up in a leather jacket too big for him, definitely not his, just the first one he touched when they left the house in Munich, but Brian’s already seen the track marks in the crooks of his elbows.

Brian turns back to the road and tries not to break the steering wheel between his hands.

Checking Freddie’s out for the count, Brian twiddles with the radio dial for something to do and tries to focus on the crackling sounds of music played through a tin can car in the middle of nowhere, rather than anything else he’s thinking.

He fails, but keeps on driving.

Freddie stirs somewhere in the weak and sickly light of the pre-pre-dawn, coming from unconscious to alert in such a snap that Brian knows it wasn’t a true sleep. Just exhaustion weighing him down until his body catches up. He wonders when the last time Freddie rested was or whether this is what he’s been doing all year, burning himself to the wick until he sputters out into nothing, reigniting again but paler than before.

“Where are you taking us?”

“Away.”

“My, aren’t we being cryptic?” Freddie’s face shutters as soon as the words leave his mouth, playful and wrong in the loaded quiet of the car. Brian’s hands tighten on the wheel. He sounds an imitation of himself, echoes of a Freddie who would tease and laugh and drive Brian to distraction rather than a Freddie who leaves, who left, and Brian aches.

He offers “Italy,” and Freddie hums, eyes on the horizon.

“Wake me if we see the coast,” he says, and is asleep again in seconds.

Brian nearly doesn’t. It’s hours later and he hasn’t stopped driving since he started. His eyes are itching, his shoulders ache from barely allowing himself to move an inch, and he told himself he was going to pull the car over the second they left Germany and sleep behind the wheel but even once he’s out of that godforsaken country he can’t make himself stop. If he stops he’s going to have to be confronted with all he’s done. It’s easier to just drive and suddenly Austria is a blip on the map and they’re in Italy, heading for the coast.

Freddie is still sleeping, something approximating real sleep this time, right down to his small mumbles even if the shakes are still intermittent, and Brian doesn’t want to wake him. There’s an awful gnarl in his chest that’s always been there when it comes to Freddie, but now it’s grown thorns.

When he lays a hand on Freddie’s curled shoulder, Freddie startles like a wild thing. It’s a far cry from a thousand sleepy mornings in hotel rooms, lazily exchanging promises and kisses and any other nonsense they could. Freddie always needed dragging from sleep, coaxing out from beneath the sheets with talks of albums and good wine and beautiful art, and Brian was only too happy, too proud, too utterly content with his lot in life to be the one to do so. To see Freddie jerk himself bodily away is another wound Brian didn’t think he could take but takes anyway.

Then Freddie spots sunlight glinting off water, and his whole body turns, a flower spent too long in darkness aching for light, to watch the Italian coast sail by. “ _Oh_ ,” he sighs, a magical sound Brian has never been able to find a note on his guitar to replicate. “Oh, Brian, _look_.”

“I’m looking.”

It’s closer to midday now than sunrise but there are still flecks of oranges and reds burnishing the sea’s surface, bouncing off the cliffs and bringing a colour to Freddie’s cheeks Brian has yet to see. When he turns back to Brian, there’s something returned to the depths of his brown eyes that settles something in Brian’s chest, something that’s been restless and hungry for nearly a year.

“Thank you,” Freddie says, honest in the light, and Brian can’t look at him anymore.

They follow the coast for another hour before Brian starts to recognise streets and signs and peels them away towards a villa he hasn’t set foot in in years. Nominally, it’s one of Brian’s summer houses, one of several scattered across Europe, but Chrissy never had any real love of travelling so Brian mainly pays for its upkeep and precious little else. A cleaner comes in every other week to ensure that it’s in a fit state for him to take a weekend break or disappear off the map with a wayward bandmate, should the need for either arise, and he’s never been more glad than to find that the spare key hidden in the fountain fits the lock smoothly and lets them in with ease. The place is large and airy, pale yellow walls and white tile floors, a breeze off the sea trailing salt air through the rooms.

They stand in the entrance hall for a long moment, silent again, and Brian can feel all his forward momentum grinding to an agonising halt. _What now?_ He wants to ask the question, but since he’s the one who got on a last-minute plane to Germany less than twenty four hours ago, he’s the one who demanded an address from Jim and dragged Freddie out of that place, he’s the one who shoved them both in a car and drove two countries over, he probably should have the answers. He doesn’t. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing here, except that it’s all he can do.

Then Freddie yawns again, and instinct kicks back in.

“Bed,” he orders, and directs Freddie to the master bedroom.

Freddie doesn’t even argue, lets himself be led up the spiral stairs and down the long corridor to a room Brian’s barely ever slept in. The bed is big and there’s a balcony attached through a pair of glass doors, white net curtains billowing out in the breeze. He worries they’re not going do much to keep out the midday sun, but Freddie is in bed and asleep again before it can even become an issue, then all Brian’s left with are his thoughts.

He heads down the street and picks up bread and cheese and fruit, a newspaper because it feels like the thing he should do, and a packet of terrible Italian cigarettes. When he gets back he sits out on the balcony, Freddie asleep behind him, and smokes his way through half the damn thing.

Brian’s never smoked the way the rest of his band do but stress and self-loathing always have a way of making him reach for a cigarette, to punish himself maybe, or just for something to do with his fingers. He’s bought more packs this year than he ever has before, only ever smoking one alone in the garden or locked in the bathroom with the window open before throwing the rest of the packet out, and he hates to realise it but it’s become a habit. He blows at the smoke lingering in the air before him, and is considering throwing the half-ruined cigarette in his grasp off the balcony when a hand reaches out and plucks it from his fingers.

Freddie stubs it out in the blue ceramic egg cup Brian brought up from the kitchen and doesn’t comment on the other five already crowded in there.

The gesture is familiar, but reversed. Brian’s lost all count of how often he’s lifted a cigarette from Freddie’s fingers and taken a swift drag, passing the smoke back into Freddie’s mouth because he didn’t so much mind the taste after that. Freddie doesn’t lean down and swap tobacco with rolling tongues, but he steps close enough between Brian’s legs that Brian has to tilt his chin right back to be able to see him. His fingers find Brian’s hair and begin to comb through the tangles and snarls he’s put there the past day, and Brian feels himself shudder as a dam threatens to break inside him.

Then Freddie bends and silently presses a kiss to the crown of Brian’s head. The gesture could mean any of a thousand things or just one very simple thing, and Brian tips forward, presses his face into Freddie’s stomach, and his shoulders begin to shake. He’s clinging to Freddie, arms having come up without his noticing and wrapped around Freddie’s thin, too thin, hips. He can feel heat and bone and the very _presence_ of Freddie under his hands once again, and doesn’t know what to do with it now he’s stolen it back.

“Oh, my love, what have we done to each other?” Freddie murmurs the words into his hair, gentle sound belied by how tightly he’s gripping back to Brian’s shoulders.

They stay like that for what could be hours until Freddie sucks in a deep breath and disentangles himself from Brian. “Sleep,” he says, thumb curving against Brian’s cheek. “We’ll still be here tomorrow.”

Brian can’t stop the way his fingers clench on Freddie’s hips, because there’s no way he can be sure of that.

But he goes, lies down in the warm rumple of sheets Freddie left behind, and lets blackness swallow him under.

He dreams, awful things.

Wandering through endless black corridors searching for something important that he can’t find. The small curl of Freddie’s back through the window of the Munich house, Brian shouting and crying for him but Freddie doesn't hear. A shadow falling over him and taking him further away out of Brian’s reach.

It’s dark when he wakes and he’s clearly been asleep for hours. His body aches from the unfamiliar sensation of holding himself completely still in his sleep, and he knows before he opens his eyes that Freddie is in the bed next to him.

Unbidden, he remembers the way _Freddie would appear in his bed, some nights too drunk to stand, others quiet and lonesome. He would barely touch Brian on these nights, towards the end, and they were few and far between. But still sometimes he would find his way to Brian’s room and silently slip between the sheets, so careful, always trying not to wake a Brian who wasn’t sleeping at the time anyway. Too scared of what Freddie was out doing, too angry to sleep, too busy imagining all the ways Freddie was selling himself to crowds of people who would devour him whole._

_Brian would never let him know he was awake from the second he heard the door open. He’d lie still and let Freddie come back to him in the smallest of ways. It was as if Freddie got brave once more in the dark, such a different creature from the wild and angry thing who pulled away from Brian at every turn in the studio. He would run a hand through Brian’s hair, or plant a kiss at his cheek, his forehead, his lax mouth, curl himself under Brian’s arm and fall asleep like that. Always disappear before the morning truly came._

_One night he couldn’t hold himself still, he remembers. Freddie hadn’t kissed him that night, that wasn’t the thing that made the dam break. Freddie had pressed his forehead to Brian’s so hard it had hurt, and made a low sound like a dying man. Brian didn’t even open his eyes. Maybe it was the shudder of breath that had ghosted over his lips, or the hint of wet from Freddie’s lashes, but Brian moved and kissed Freddie like he could take whatever was eating him up inside from him. Freddie responded with similar, aching, desperation, opening up to Brian in a way he hadn’t in months, and didn’t stop until Brian slid inside him and he buried his face in Brian’s neck._

_They fucked in near silence, but for the quiet sounds Freddie made in Brian’s ear. In the dark, in the quiet, it felt like their own world and Brian wanted to keep Freddie here forever, shield him with his body and take the arrows for him. He wanted to tell Freddie again and again how he loved him, the way he’d told him before so easily, but the words wouldn’t come. There was too much between them. But when Brian woke in the morning, alone, with sheets that still smelled of Freddie, he regretted holding his tongue._

_Freddie didn’t come to his room at night again._

Without moving Brian knows Freddie has retreated once again; whatever bravery that led him out onto the balcony yesterday is gone now. Freddie’s gaze is far away, unmoving from where his fingers are tracing a restless pattern into the sheets, but he must be as aware of Brian as Brian is of him because as soon as Brian shifts, Freddie shifts too. Keeping the same amount of distance between them. It tears at something in Brian just the same as it did months before.

Nothing’s changed, he thinks, except for how everything has.

And he has changed, he realises, because he reaches out as Freddie moves, catches a hand in his t-shirt and holds on. His grasp untucks Freddie’s shirt a little from his jeans, creases the material in his hands. Freddie stops instantly and finally lifts his eyes to meet Brian’s. It’s anticipation in his dark eyes, terrified anticipation.

Brian has so much to say and is ready for none of it. Instead he asks, “How are you feeling today?”

Naked surprise flickers across Freddie’s face. It’s the first thing Brian’s said to him since they got in the car that wasn’t a response to something Freddie’s said or a quiet order.  Something awful twists at Freddie’s mouth, and Brian braces for the cutting response.

_“Am I coming down off something, do you mean, darling?” Spat across a studio._

_“I know you’re coming down off something, Fred. I just want to know you’re okay.”_

_“You know, these days you’re really starting to bore me. Work on that.”_

But the expression slides away into a thin laugh. Freddie brings up an hand to rub at his arm, as if cold in the Italian air. “I feel like shit,” he admits, and his shoulders slump.

“You look it too.”

“ _Alright!_ ” But it has the desired response, Freddie laughs again, head ducking, top lip pulling over his teeth, and Brian’s heart seizes in his chest.

There’s a lulling gap of silence and at a slant it could be almost comfortable, could be any place in the world they’ve been before, and maybe they don’t have to do this now. Maybe they can take their time and let the anger and hurt lying shallow beneath the surface subside, just a little. Freddie needs time to become himself again.

But just as Brian’s opening his mouth to offer coffee or breakfast or whatever meal is most suitable for whatever time it truly is, Freddie says “Why did you come to Munich, Brian?” Because Freddie has always been the braver of the two of them.

Brian’s hand is still clasped in Freddie’s shirt. “You know why I came to Munich.” He says quietly but Freddie is already shaking his head, shaking him off and leaving the bed.

Brian follows him out onto the balcony and waits until Freddie has lit himself a cigarette and gestured it crossly at him. The idea that Freddie has any room to be angry at him right now is so incredulous that Brian scoffs, white hot embers of his own anger stirring in ribs. “What else was I going to do, Freddie?” He demands. “None of us have heard from you in nearly a year. You weren’t picking up calls, you weren’t reaching out, all I’ve had is the fucking front page to tell me if you were even alive or not, what else did you want me to do?”

“That’s-” Freddie takes another shaky drag. “That’s not what I asked.”

But Brian’s still talking. Months of silence, of Brian storing up everything he’s wanted to say to this man, and finally he’s in front of him but Brian’s not saying any of it. Nothing he promised himself he’d say to Freddie if he ever saw him again, nothing he closed his eyes and let himself imagine whispering into Freddie’s neck, his ear. This is the anger that cut off every daydream with a firm snap, the grief that kept him up at night, the burning hatred he couldn’t shake in the day. “And if I had to listen to that fucking _rat_ tell me one more time how _hard_ you were working and how _busy_ you were and _oh, Brian, no need to worry yourself about him I’ve got him all under control_ -” He breaks himself off as a crest of anger rises in him like a wave, inhales sharply through his nose.

He flexes a hand. His one regret about Munich is that Prenter wasn’t in the house when he and Freddie left.

Freddie is staring at him. “When did you-” He shakes his head. “This isn’t about him.”

“This has always been about him.”

“No, this is about us, me and you, and you not being able to _stand_ me doing anything without you.”

Which is so far from the point that Brian laughs. It’s an awful sound. “Don’t be so fucking ridiculous, Fred.” He can hear his voice is a terrible thing and feels sick. “There hasn’t been an us in years,” he says, just to be cruel and because he can’t stop his voice.

Freddie exhales heavily, shakes his head. “I’m so sorry I got tired of being your fucking _mistress_ , dear, that must have been awfully inconvenient for you.”

It’s a gut punch. “Don’t do that.”

“What? Tell the truth?” There’s a gleam in Freddie’s eye. “That’s what I was, darling. It doesn’t matter whether you took off your ring, or what you whispered in my ear. I was the other woman.”

Brian shakes his head, purses his lips against the bile rising in his throat. He wants to punch something hearing Freddie’s voice like this again, nasty and goading. Freddie has a talent for this kind of cruelty, a way of unerringly targeting in on vulnerabilities, and he’ll set himself alight to take Brian down with him when he’s feeling vicious.

Because, on paper, it’s true and that’s why it sticks sour in Brian’s throat. For years he and Freddie were together, and there was never not a wedding ring hidden away in Brian’s suitcase.

But, “That’s not what you were,” Brian says, because this is more the truth than anything else. “You _know_ that’s not what you were.”

Freddie blows out a stream of smoke instead of answering. “Why did you come, Brian?”

_Because it was killing me not to. Because I was hurt and angry and thought I knew better but every single day it killed me not to have you. Because I had you once and living without you was torture of the cruellest kind. Because you didn’t want me anymore and I couldn’t bear it but if you needed me I’d always come. Because I love you and can’t stop._

“Why did you come with me?”

Freddie sighs and for a second Brian thinks he’s going to get angry again, but he just stubs out his cigarette with a sense of finality, tilts his head back as if daring Brian. “Honestly?” Brian nods and Freddie’s smile is a helpless thing. “I thought you were a dream.” And he lights another cigarette, as if he hasn’t reached between Brian’s fourth and fifth ribs and squeezed. He laughs, shrugs, blows out a plume of smoke towards the horizon. “Imagine my surprise waking up in Italy.”

It’s Brian’s turn.

Truth for truth.

“Chrissy left me.” It’s the first time he’s said the words out loud.

“Smart girl,” Freddie says and Brian has to force his hackles back down at the smug approval in Freddie’s voice. Freddie never understood or tried to to understand what marriage meant to Brian. He supposes Freddie never had a reason to; why would he think anything of an institution Brian desecrated every night, anyway. At this point, Brian’s not even sure he himself knows what he ever wanted from his marriage other than it was what he was supposed to do. Which is ugly to even think, but at least it’s honest. “Why?”

“Because I told her everything,” Brian says, and takes a point of satisfaction when Freddie freezes mid-drag. “All of it.”

“And you’re still breathing?” Freddie laughs, and Brian can’t help it, he laughs too. It’s awful, the guilt he doesn’t feel standing here with Freddie. “She’s lost her touch.”

“Wait to see what I lose in the divorce, then we’ll see.” The divorce. His divorce. The thought doesn’t make him feel as small and ashamed as he always thought it would. He feels light for the first time in years.

Freddie’s still laughing, hiding his smile behind his cigarette. “You didn’t tell her about-”

“Vienna? Yeah.”

“ _My god, Brian!_ I didn’t like the woman but she didn’t deserve _that!_ ”

She didn’t deserve any of it. Freddie could and had in the past waxed poetic about the cold and miserable clutches of Brian’s wife, how much happier Brian was without her comments and small asides, how she never gave it to him the way Freddie did, and Brian never disagreed because it was always more true than it wasn’t. But it wasn’t Chrissy’s fault that whatever love he’d had for her once hadn’t lasted, hadn’t even compared to Freddie.

“Why did you tell her?” Freddie asks and Brian shrugs.

“Because I should have a long time ago.”

Freddie considers him for a long moment. “So your wife left you and you thought you’d come to Munich to…what? Pick up where we left off?” It’s just accusing enough to prickle at Brian’s anger again, but he tries to hold it in check. He’s dealing with a Freddie backed into a corner right now, however much Brian doesn’t like the idea, and a Freddie on the defensive is a Freddie on the offensive.

“It wasn’t me who left off, Fred, remember?” He points out, and Freddie frowns, dropping his gaze.

“No, that can’t be right.” It’s quiet enough that Brian almost misses it, then Freddie is brandishing the cigarette at him again. Brian has visions of snapping the damn thing in two. “You’re the one who pulled away, dear. The way you looked at me towards the end.”

“I was angry!”

He was heartbroken. Recording was disjointed and awful, fights broke out every minute. Freddie was barely around and if he was he was prickly and shadowed by Prenter. Prenter, who kept a firm hand on Freddie’s jacket, who laughed like a schoolgirl when Freddie tripped over his feet or threw vitriol at John or Roger who deserved it least, who handed Freddie shiny little pills like sweeties and who coaxed him back out into the Munich night, behind them only destruction.

Brian snapped two of the strings on his Special in the aftermath of a Freddie/Prenter hurricane. Roger kicked in his drums. It was Deaky who said it; They were losing a man all too happy to be lost.

“You were constantly high and you were fucking _him-_ ”

“Oh, you can fuck your wife when you go home to her but godforbid _I-”_

“I hadn’t slept with Chrissy in two years, Freddie. You _knew_ tha-”

“ _Well how could I?!_ ” Freddie’s voice rises in a crescendo, breaks like a storm. Leaves them both shivering in the following silence. “How could I know that? You had a wife, children, a home. How could I…” He trails off but Brian hears the _compare_ he doesn’t say.

“Because I told you, Freddie. _I told you_.”

Freddie closes his eyes and Brian wonders if he’s thinking the same thing he is- _Freddie collapsed beneath him, wrung out and arching so beautifully, face turned away and eyes screwn tight as Brian pushed him through oversensitivity and promised, “Only you, baby, only you.”_

_Chrissy had visited the studio unexpectedly, a rare enough occurrence, spent the weekend while the kids were at her mother’s, and Brian didn’t see anything of Freddie but a disappearing scarf around a distant corner until he came back from the airport and found Freddie in his hotel room. Their hotel room._

_Chrissy’s perfume still hung in the air._

_Brian had taken a step and then Freddie was on him. A man possessed, Freddie had kissed him like he was trying to burn him up from the inside, had Brian stupid and wanting in seconds. Freddie snatched Brian’s unspoken apology from his lungs and devoured it whole, dragged him to the bed that hadn’t yet been made._

_“Fuck me in our bed,” Freddie had demanded, and Brian did, spread Freddie out over sheets that welcomed them home every night and fucked him desperately. Freddie’s nails scored down Brian’s back. He bit and fought at every point except for where their bodies joined, where they made sense again. He cursed Brian’s name and cried and Brian promised him, deeply,_

“Only you.”

Freddie makes a wounded noise. “Don’t.”

Brian steps closer. “Maybe I didn’t say it enough, but you didn’t _listen_ when I did.”

“ _Don’t.”_

The cigarette in Freddie’s hand is burned to the filter. Brian can hear distant waves from the coastline. His heartbeat is pounding in his ears, thrumming in his wrists, and he doesn’t fully recognise his own voice when it comes out, low. “You listened to him instead.”

Freddie stills, a statue in moonlight, a rabbit in headlights. “ _Brian_.” It’s a warning that Brian doesn’t heed, doesn’t care to heed.

“God, why do you _always_ defend him?” It could be any of a thousand days before and Brian feels as useless as he ever did then; trying to make casual comments about the unsuitability of Paul as a companion, only to be brushed off for being too uptight. Pleading with Freddie not to go out again tonight, just stay in, I miss you. Hearing John and Roger make the same arguments again, again, and keeping silent because he couldn’t enter the argument without it turning to being about _them_  when it needed to be about _Freddie_ , couldn’t force his voice to rational calmness with Prenter in the doorway, waiting, couldn’t bring himself to offer up the pieces of his heart for Freddie to turn them down again. “What did he have, what could he possibly have offered-”

And there’s a flash of amusement, twisted amusement, across Freddie’s face, just quick enough for Brian to catch, and sharp humiliation rises in Brian’s gullet. He rears back as if hit. “Oh fuck me then, right? What’s love compared to a sleazy fuck in a leather club coked to your fucking eyeballs. How could I possibly have compared to that little delight.” As he talks he feels sick, sick at the words escaping his mouth, sick at the expression on Freddie’s face. He’s never seen shame so defiant. “Though I did always wonder whether he actually fucked you himself or whether he just offered you around to his friends. Do you even remember, Fred, or did it even matter-”

Freddie’s slap is a crack in the night.

Brian doesn’t hesitate. He catches Freddie’s wrist instantly, holds it hard, and he’s so angry he doesn’t even feel pain on his cheek, just heat, pure heat. He can feel the bones of Freddie’s wrist beneath his fingers, the struggle he makes to free himself, and doesn’t care. Behind their hands, Freddie is breathing heavily, tilts his chin back in goading invitation, and for a searing second Brian wants to hit him back.

Then he drops his hand.

Freddie stumbles a little, taken aback.

Brian should walk away. Take a deep breath, cool off, try and talk to Freddie when he doesn’t feel like an open wound. It does neither of them any good, hurting each other like this - Brian should let the matter lie.

He steps closer. “You listened to him and you left us.”

_-Freddie holding himself up on an amp, awful set to his mouth, high and pretending to be otherwise as he smoked a cigarette and let the words ‘Solo deal’ hit each of them in turn._

_“Is this a joke?” Roger asked, the only one to ask. John held his bass between his fingers and was looking blankly at it like he’d snapped its neck, and Brian didn’t need to ask._

_He wasn’t even watching Freddie, wasn’t listening to the words as he replied to Roger. He was watching Prenter filling the door behind him, the smug stamp of his smile. Brian knew that he lost this fight a long time ago but here it was. The final blow he didn’t even know to expect._

_“Don’t do it, Freddie,” He said over whatever weak justification Freddie was trying to offer, and his words sounding cutting because he was trying to make them not sound heartbroken and desperate._

_It was the wrong thing to say. Everything Brian said these days was the wrong thing to say. The days when Brian knew Freddie inside and out, when talking to Freddie and being with Freddie was easier than breathing, were long gone._

_Freddie turned slowly. “He speaks.” His mouth was a sneer. “Don’t strain yourself, darling, or I might start thinking you care.”_

_“Freddie.” Prenter tilted his head, and Freddie moved as if pulled by invisible strings._

_“Fuck you.” The words could have been for either of them, but he directed them to Prenter. “This is a band discussion.”_

_Freddie laughed, and Brian didn’t recognise the sound. “What band?” And when Paul called again, he went._

_Brian didn’t stop him._

He should have. Should have stopped him long ago, should have chased him down the dangerous path Freddie was wandering alone and dragged him back to the light. Ever since Freddie walked away, Brian has kept himself up at night, replaying every memory, screaming at himself to _fucking do something_ , loathing himself for never having had the courage to. In his angrier moments he told himself that Freddie hadn’t wanted saving; in his truthful ones he knew-

“I think I expected you to stop me.” Freddie’s voice is a quiet, awful confession and Brian sucks in a sharp breath. They’re standing so close now that Freddie has to tilt his neck to meet Brian’s gaze, but he does, his eyes dark and shining. “That’s- That’s not why I did it, any of it. But I think part of me still hoped, and when you didn’t I took it as proof.”

Brian doesn’t want to hear this, but can’t not ask. “Proof?”

“Proof you didn’t care about me. Didn’t love me. Didn’t-” He cuts himself off, then forges on ahead. “Didn’t want me anymore.”

They aren’t Freddie’s words. Brian can hear it it in the way Freddie recites them. He knows exactly who whispered this to Freddie, who took the truth and made it ugly and twisted and fed it to Freddie with a handful of pills. He’s lucky, he realises now, that Prenter wasn’t in Munich. Brian wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from killing him.

“That’s not fair, Freddie. You can’t just make that decision for me, I didn’t-” He stops, shakes his head, and instead says, “I should have.”

Freddie’s lips part. He blinks. Surprise blooms across his face like a dawn.

“I wished I did.” And the truth spills out of Brian like a river rushing to the sea. “The day after you left, we went to practice anyway, if you can believe that, but of course you weren’t there. You weren’t anywhere. I don’t think Roger and John really expected it.” Freddie makes a wounded noise and Brian doesn’t take any pleasure in it this time. It echoes in his own chest like a bell. “I sat there as they waited for you, knowing you weren’t coming, and all I could think was _‘I should have tried harder’._ ”

There’s a tremor in Freddie’s bottom lip, a thickness in his voice, as he asks “Why didn’t you?” as if he can't bear to hear the answer but can’t stop himself from asking all the same.

Brian’s laugh is wet. It’s a sickening hysteria because- “I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”

It’s the truth Brian never allowed himself to say out loud, never threw at Freddie in an argument, never confided in Roger when he asked why the fuck Brian was letting any of this stand. Brian with a broken heart was like a wounded animal, angry and terrified and ready to admit to neither. And all the while, Freddie was thinking the same.

Admitting this, realising this, breaks the dam carefully constructed inside of him, tears it out by the foundations and leaves him open.

“ _Oh, darling_.” Freddie reaches up and brushes a thumb over his cheek, sweeping away a tear that threatens to fall, then presses up on his toes. “Don’t, please.” His lips, soft but sure, catch the next tear that does fall, and the next, and it doesn’t do any good really because then Freddie is crying and passing tears back to Brian even as he kisses them away. But Brian’s body has ached for Freddie, missing him like a second heart, and as Freddie kisses his eyelids, his forehead, the bridge of his nose, gentle as a mother, Brian turns. Catches his mouth. Prays.

There’s a moment of infinite stillness. Brian can feel the rasp of Freddie’s lips, slightly chapped, held against his own, the warm shocked exhale of Freddie’s breath, the breeze in his hair, and thinks he could die like this, die and be thankful.

Freddie surges against him like a flood.

There’s no doubt, no time to even think it, because Freddie is opening his mouth to Brian’s, tugging frantic fingers into his hair, rocking them almost off balance before Brian plants his feet and catches him; wraps a palm around the back of Freddie’s neck and pulls him closer, wraps an arm around his ribs and holds him tighter. Freddie is an outpouring and Brian swallows him down, thumb stroking quietly at Freddie’s hairline as they cling to each other.

“We’re not finished talking about this.” Freddie mumbles against his lips, and his voice, breathless like this, is a sound Brian never thought he’d hear again.

“I know.”

Freddie’s nodding into Brian’s mouth, senseless movement, and he’s shaking again, Brian realises. Brian is as well, adrenaline and hope coursing through him like mercury in his veins. Step by shaking step they move until Freddie’s thighs hits the balcony wall, doesn’t throw out a hand to steady himself because Brian is holding him up, coaxing him up until he’s perched on the edge, silhouetted by the Italian sky.

“ _Bri-_ ”

“I’ve got you,”  Brian promises, hands set against Freddie’s curving spine, and feels Freddie’s weight pass over to his keeping as Freddie offers his mouth up once again.

Brian’s heart clatters in his chest.

_-Freddie, laughing so brightly, perching himself on Brian’s knee and bartering his latest sheaf of music for Brian’s perusal in exchange for_ only a kiss, darling, it’s an absolute steal, _a kiss Brian was all too happy to provide- the sheet music littering the floor afterwards-_

_-Freddie collapsed against the hotel room door he’d been deposited against, hammering and calling for Brian to let him in, stinking of stale cigarettes and heavy sex and he pouted, lips red and wet, for a kiss Brian could not give him-_

_-The first time, maybe, or at least one of the earlier times. Freddie pretending a bravado he didn’t feel until Brian had him tugged close and then he tilted his head back, lips parted so slightly, in a gesture Brian could easily read, had been reading, was finally giving himself up to kiss Freddie the way he should be kissed._

There’s been thousands of kisses, almost-kisses, not-kisses and should-have-been-kisses. Brian has kissed Freddie in cars, in the rain, on his neck, his hands, kissed him quick behind a well-placed amp, kissed him slow behind a well-placed amp, has kissed Freddie when he was sick, when he was sad, when he was swollen with happiness and whenever he could. He’s been helpless to it, over and over, and truthfully speaking he still is.

But this time it’s a choice and it’s the easiest choice Brian’s ever made.

He ducks his head and seals his mouth to Freddie’s like he’s sealing a pact, making a promise, like he can pour himself out for Freddie to have and to hold. Freddie hooks his heels around Brian’s knees, his hands come up to grip at Brian’s back, taking Brian at his word and _holding_. Brian wants to offer up the craquelure of his heart for Freddie to, if not fix, hold together as valiantly as he’s clinging to Brian. He imagines Freddie would paint the cracks gold and call them beautiful once again.

Brian’s hands scan up Freddie’s body, crumple at soft, warm material, and then Freddie’s shirt is gone, thrown over the balcony and lost in the dark. Before Freddie can complain, Brian has him hitched up around his hips - birdbone light - and carries him inside.

They never turned the lights on so all they have is the moon spilling over rumpled sheets, the way it turns the darkness of Freddie’s eyes to stars, makes Brian brave in the half-light. He steals another kiss, and another, lent over Freddie as he removes his own shirt, tosses it haphazardly, and is pulled back down for a kiss not stolen but given to him as if almost nothing ever changed.

It’s easy, coming back to each other. Brian’s body remembers Freddie’s better than he knows his own. He learned long ago the way gooseflesh ripples along Freddie’s arms at the gentlest touch, the exact splay of Freddie’s legs and how perfectly he fits between them, the sigh Freddie makes when Brian leaves his lips to kiss a path up and down his neck.

This, too, is familiar; continuing a conversation, a row, a song, with their bodies instead of their words. Their middle eight.

Because whenever they had them, their arguments had always been impressive. No one else could rile Brian up the way Freddie did, and nothing could turn Freddie to stubborn and righteous fury like Brian with his mind made up. They made some of their best music that way, challenging each other to extremes, and the sex had been phenomenal in the heat of it all - Brian has fond memories of scratchy burns on his knees from the studio carpet, a finished song in his hands, and Freddie squirming tellingly in the seat beside him - but afterwards they always soothed the edges with soft hands and sweeter kisses. Sex was a shorthand between them, and try as he might Brian’s never forgotten the language.

Clearly, neither has Freddie. His hands slip into Brian’s hair and tug at the base of his skull, familiar and knowing, and he’s there to meet the first roll of Brian’s hips like he’s been waiting for it.

At the touch of Freddie, everything comes rushing back. They could be anywhere, they could be any version of themselves, could be high on the crowds at Madison Square Garden, flying on top of the world and riding the adrenaline to screw recklessly in the backstage wings, or could be right back at the beginning in their shitty London flat, young and stupid and in love. Brian could drown in memories of loving Freddie, but forces himself here. Here, where it hurts and here where, finally, they could be finding the way back.

There _are_ differences. Freddie is frantic beneath him in a way he hasn’t been in years, in a desperate way, in a way that always cried out for Brian to love him as hard as he could just to prove that he did. Brian always held Freddie firm against him, but now he can’t stop his hands from tightening, holding on and holding Freddie in place, as if he’s going to disappear through his hands like smoke. When they kiss, teeth clacking and breath fast, it still feels like an argument, right up until it doesn’t. Until something in Brian soothes and lays flat at the flick of Freddie’s tongue, until Freddie arches under Brian’s hand and makes a delicate breathy sound that could be Brian’s name.

The noise is so free from anger, from venom or hurt, that Brian has to chase it down, swallow it up, take it inside himself until he can pass it back to Freddie on a breath.

Freddie is relaxing beneath him, fingers finding the old rhythm of Brian’s hips, the snap of his jeans, and it could be almost playful the way he yanks Brian’s belt out and throws it across the room. Brian laughs, stolen joy bubbling out of him, and Freddie pulls him back down.

Minus the shirt that Brian’s unsuspecting gardener will doubtless find tomorrow, Freddie is still wearing the clothes Brian found him in in Munich. The t-shirt had been too tight to be for anything other than a club, and the jeans as if Freddie had been poured into them, but Brian had found him curled up on a sofa in the dark, alone, surrounded by remnants of a party that long left Freddie behind. The need to have Freddie out of them is suddenly so overwhelming that Brian can’t help the force he takes to Freddie’s jeans, and Freddie laughs a little at the sudden enthusiasm. It’s the nicest laugh Freddie has made all night, honest and off-guard.

“ _Careful_ ,” he says, and tips back his head. The sheets halo him. There’s a glint of mirth in his eyes, a small test. “I’m not even sure these are my jeans.”

“I’ll buy you new ones.”

Anything he wants just as long as Brian doesn’t have to look at this pair a second longer.

Freddie’s mouth twitches but he doesn’t say anything, lets Brian pull the material from his body, and in silence they undress each other. Brian’s shirt is pushed from his shoulders and Freddie kisses the skin he finds there, mouth clever and quick as if he could be discovered at any moment. Freddie’s jeans are finally tossed aside, Brian’s joining soon after, and then in the moonlight Brian stills. Looks down at Freddie, dark in stark white sheets, looking like a trick of the light and feeling so solid beneath him, and Brian doesn’t want to wake from this.

Here is everything he told himself he could live without.

When they deteriorated it had been a slow descent. Snide comments becoming stony silences becoming arguments that bled. Brian returning early and alone from the Shack became Brian being left at home for a drunken Freddie to sometimes return to, became Brian’s bed, empty and cold. Even now Brian can’t pinpoint the second, the hour, the day he cut himself off from wanting Freddie to come back to him, only that after that it had been a sudden, violent collapse and he hadn’t succeeded anyway.

Brian told himself he didn’t love Freddie anymore and somehow, he realises now, Freddie believed it. More than Brian ever could have.

_I still love you_ he wants to say.

_Do you still love me_ he wants to ask.

He wants to be brave enough to know what happens if he does.

“ _Brian_ ,” Freddie whines, bucks his hips, and there’ll be time for talk later. If Brian’s lucky, he might get all the time in the world.

Brian presses down like he can give it all to Freddie without words. He tries to bite it into Freddie’s jaw, kiss it into his hair, bruise it into his hips.

There are marks, fading but there, on the skin of Freddie’s throat that Brian didn’t put there and he _hates_ them. They’re the damning evidence that Brian failed, that while he was at home nursing a broken heart and a wounded pride Freddie was lost in the arms of others. He wishes he were simply jealous, something pure and spiteful to run through him and let him cover up the marks with his own. Instead he leaves them untouched, to fade with time, hopes he’s there to see them go.

The rhythm they find is an old, familiar song. Like teenagers again, just trying to get close, _closer_. Freddie’s arms wrapping tight and gracelessly about Brian’s neck as he arches beneath him. Brian’s hands flat on the gentle dip of Freddie’s back and pulling Freddie up against him, soothing the staccato beat until it becomes a long, shuddering note. Freddie’s head tipping back with sensations and Brian’s hand moving to tuck behind Freddie’s knee, hitch his leg up and bend Freddie’s body the way he needs to push inside-

“ _No-”_

It’s so sudden, a whipcrack of sound, that Brian pulls back. There’s an expression on Freddie’s face that Brian has never seen before, sunken and sick, before it’s gone again. Then Freddie is kissing him, quick and frantic and pretending not to be. His hands stroke Brian’s cheek, soothing, distracting, as he smiles, and when the smile can’t hold itself he kisses him again.

“Just like this, Bri.” He whispers, pulling Brian’s suddenly still body back to him. “It’s perfect like this.”

Something cold is unspooling in the back of Brian’s mind. It trickles down his neck and into his spine, seizes around his heart, and, like all great cowards, Brian ignores it.

He nods silently and kisses Freddie back.

If it’s a little more forceful, a little more desperate, neither of them draw attention to it. Neither mention the grip Brian still has on Freddie’s thigh, his fingers digging into solid flesh, too hard and painful, sure to bruise. Or how Freddie’s nails dig into Brian’s shoulders as they move together, slow and purposeful, gazing into each other in a feedback loop, until they begin to edge towards desperation.

Brian wraps his hand around both of them at once, and Freddie’s eyes close, the smallest knotted frown at the centre of his brow as he hitches his hips. His mouth is bitten and red, teeth clutching at his bottom lip, every part of his body is coiling up beneath Brian, given over to him and to the moment, and-

The words come out of Brian between one movement and the next, trapped between his racing heartbeats, on a breath he can’t hold any longer. “I love you,” he says, and Freddie’s eyes snap back open, dark and uncomprehending, so Brian says it again, and again, says for every time he should have said it and didn’t, says because he can and because it’s true.

He repeats the words like a prayer, interspersed with Freddie’s name, even as his voice goes broken and his hips lose their rhythm. Maybe bravery has come too late, but at least it came at all, and when Freddie comes it’s with a small sob and with Brian promising him this in his ear.

Whatever happens, he cannot regret that.

Freddie turns his head to find Brian’s mouth, hot and panting, and his fingers reach out, blindly curl around Brian’s. “ _Brian_ ,” he groans, pleads, and then it’s a matter of seconds for Brian to fall apart, brought silent and low by Freddie’s hand.

It’s a long, long, time before they move.

Freddie’s breathing is evening out against his neck by the time Brian finally urges his reluctant body to move, to collapse beside Freddie in a near-daze of disbelief, and Freddie stirs like he’s been sleeping with a small noise of protest. The sound catches in the back of Freddie’s throat before it truly escapes, and Brian hears the uncertainty in its absence, feels it echo in his own.

They’ve ruined each other in so many ways that to add this to the list seems inconsequential, still it aches just the same.

But Brian has played all his cards, the ones that truly matter anyway, and if he’s the first to reach back out, Freddie comes back to him instantly. He can’t help the smile that etches on to his cheeks or the kiss he presses to Freddie’s hair, finds he has to squint in the face of a sudden emerging light.

Quite without Brian noticing, dawn has risen.

It spills into the room through the open balcony windows, reaches the bed and the sheets they’ve rumpled, and bathes them in early morning light. The world is quiet but for their breathing and, for now, it feels like they could be the only two people living. Brian runs his fingers up and down the line of Freddie’s back, picking out a melody he can’t hear to the beat of Freddie’s heart. He can feel it against his ribs, in harmony with his own, and doesn’t know how he slept alone for so long without this.

There’s a question in the back of Brian’s mind that he’s not strong enough to ask. Freddie might not even be the one with the answers yet. So they stay silent as the sun continues its steady and stubborn rise across the sky, then-

“I hated it.”

Brian almost doesn’t hear Freddie speak. If he weren’t holding him so close, if he weren’t watching the dawn light play across Freddie’s face like it was the last image he could fix in his mind, he wouldn’t have. His fingers stop their lazy path for a second, pick up again when Freddie hesitates. Brian holds himself still but for his hand, waiting for Freddie.

“Towards the end, I mean. I won’t lie to you, dear, I did love it at first.” Freddie turns, rests his chin on Brian’s chest. There’s a set to his mouth like defiance, a tilt to his jaw like challenge.

“I know.” Brian slides his hand up until it rests in Freddie’s hair, grips a little tightly to get the point through. “I did too, in the beginning.”

“You didn’t-” Freddie shakes his head, but when he looks at Brian his gaze is steady. “You didn’t need it like I did.”

Which is true. Freddie had needed the belonging that the Munich gay scene offered to him and had thrown himself into the lifestyle entirely as if he had something to prove and no time to do it in. Brian had only ever needed Freddie.

“I hated that you didn’t need it,” Freddie admits, and there’s a twist to his mouth that Brian recognises. It’s self-deprecating now, but Brian remembers almost the exact expression on Freddie’s face-

_“God, darling, you used to be fun. What’s the fucking point of a fag who won’t party?”_

_“Don’t-“_

_“Won’t dance, won’t screw, might as well head back into the closet and lock the door tight, eh dear?”_

_“I won’t talk to you like this.”_

_“What a surprise.”_

“I hated that you did.” It’s not something he ever would have admitted before, maybe not even to himself, but looking back Brian knows he resented not being enough for Freddie even after all those years. “I hated that he- that I couldn’t give you what you needed.”

“It was never about that.”

Brian can admit that, somewhere, he always knew that. It was why, in the beginning, he didn’t mind Freddie hitting the clubs without him some nights, had indulged the excitement Freddie felt at encountering a culture catered exactly for him. Freddie had finally found a place for himself to thrive, and Brian had loved watching him bloom in this new direction because, in the beginning, Freddie has always come home and shared his discoveries with Brian, breathless and eager to share.

It was only when Freddie’s returns grew later and later, more and more sporadic whether he even came home at all, when he and Paul whispered secret giggling in-jokes to each other of their night-time antics, when his temper grew short and unpredictable from late nights and copious drugs, that Brian had begun to loathe the sight of Freddie leaving the studio early, Prenter in constant tow.

“I shouldn’t have listened to him,” Freddie says quietly, face a ruin of vulnerability, as if once he’s started confession he can’t stop. “But he was easy to believe, knew _just_ -” He laughs sadly, shrugs too casually. “I mean just look at us, darling. Ten years down the line and this is the first time you’ve fucked me as a single man.”

The words are crass but Freddie starts playing with his hand gently, his left hand, specifically his left finger. There’s no mark from his wedding ring, no lightened skin to show it ever rested there. Brian never wore it enough for it to leave a mark.

If Brian has regrets, he’d start here.

“Is it true?” Freddie asks, and if his voice is light he keeps his eyes on where their fingers are dancing together.

“I got the papers last week. Miami’s looking at them now and I’ll sign when I get back.”

“He’s not really qualified to do that, you know.”

“Wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

_“I’m not really qualified to do this, you know?” Jim took the papers, the divorce papers,_ Brian’s _divorce papers, anyway. He scanned the top few leaves before setting them to one side and pinning a knowing gaze onto Brian across his desk._

_“Wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it, Jim.”_

_Jim exhaled, then got up to pour them both a generous tot of whiskey. The burn was steadying and Brian felt the hollow feeling in his chest dissipate slightly as they sat there in silence._

_“You-” He felt the need to speak up, two fingers and ten minutes in. “You won’t have any case against adultery.”_

_The tilt of Jim’s smile was wry. “No, I didn’t think I would.”_

_“Right.” Brian nodded. “She can have whatever she wants, so long as I can still see the kids. I don’t want a fight. She doesn’t deserve that.”_

_There’s a lot that his wife didn’t deserve. She especially didn’t deserve the fact that the next words out of Brian’s mouth were all he’d been thinking about since he arrived. He could have phoned, faxed the papers to Jim, rather than drag himself to the offices to announce the collapse of his marriage in person, but he had to ask “Have you heard anything from him?”_

_There was no need to ask who. Whatever Jim was thinking he kept blankly from his face as he slowly sipped his whiskey, exhaled, and set it aside. “No,” he said, dragged the word out until it hit Brian in the chest. “Nothing recent.”_

_Brian nodded, barely a movement, bit back another swig of his own drink._

_“I thought-” Jim cut himself off quick, looking as surprised at himself for letting something unplanned slip out, then fixed Brian with a look that was almost scolding. “As your lawyer, as_ the _lawyer who’s going to have to deal with all this shit, you’re an idiot.”_

_Brian laughed and the sound was tight. “Believe me,” he said. “I know.”_

_“As your friend,” and Jim sighed, scribbling something down and holding it out like a challenge. “He’s staying here.”_

_Brian took the address and was surprised when the paper stayed steady in his hand. He could have sworn he was shaking._

_“How long have-“_

_“Do you want to have this conversation or do you want to get on a plane tonight.”_

_Brian was already leaving. “I need a flight.”_

_“It’ll be booked by the time you arrive.”_

Five hours later he was in Germany with a rental car and no plan to speak of. An hour after that he found Freddie at the address he still clutched in his hand, the paper growing damp with rain, then time stopped making sense because now he’s lying with the man he loves, with the man who ruined him, who he ruined, who he never stopped loving as hard as he tried, and feels for the first time in years that this, _this_ , is where he’s meant to be.

_This is what it is,_ his heart beats, _to be in love_.

“When do you need to be back?” It’s asked carefully, Freddie still not looking at him.

Brian wants to tuck his finger beneath Freddie’s chin, tip his head back, ask what it is that he wants and give it to him if he can, but he allows Freddie the moment of privacy. “We can stay awhile,” He says, a quiet offering.

Freddie is steeling himself for something. Brian can feel the tension in his back, smoothes a hand up in an automatic attempt to settle the tautness in his frame, but Freddie is not to be pacified. He casts his gaze up to meet Brian’s and his gaze is heavy.

“Did you mean it?” He asks, and could be asking it of anything. There’s no counting the words slung back and forth between them, vicious arrows of hurt, even tonight they’d said some unforgivable things to each other, but Brian knows instantly what Freddie wants. This he can give and give easily.

“I love you, Freddie,” he says simply, and Freddie’s next breath comes out a shudder. Brian wonders if Freddie’s just as terrified as he is right now. “I didn’t stop.”

To be in love with Freddie has always hurt, has always filled Brian up breaking. He reaches out and thumbs away the tear that forms at Freddie’s eye, and can’t help but ask “Did you?”

“Never.” Simply offered back.

It hurts. But, too, it heals.

Brian turns his face away from the sun to press his mouth to all the places he tortured himself with dreaming of for a year; the shell of Freddie’s ear, the crease of his brow, the bow of his top lip, the divot in his chin. Happiness leaks out of him at every touch. Freddie squirms beneath him, protests at the treatment, but submits himself with good grace.

It’s only when Freddie’s stomach growls, and his own answers in kind, that he stops, exchanges a glance with Freddie, and they burst into somewhat delirious laughter. Brian’s chest feels the kind of light he thought it never would again.

“There’s food downstairs,” he says when they’ve caught their breath, and tugs Freddie from the bed.

In the swooping kitchen, Brian fixes them a plate of bread and cheese and fruit and they sit on the countertop to share the spoils, feet kicking idly at each other as they eat. In the comfortable silence, this feels more like a dream than anything else so far, and Brian wouldn’t put it past himself to have imagined this whole thing until Freddie finishes his enthusiastic mouthful and starts chattering about the beautiful cornicing of the kitchen, the arches in the entrance hall, and did Brian see the columns on the balcony?

“I think there’s a guitar around here somewhere, if I remember rightly.” Brian has a vague memory from what might be the only other time he’s visited this villa, paying a man for the use of his guitar one night then paying a whole lot more to take it away with him, needing the touch of strings and the smell of wood to make the place feel like it could be home. “Might be nice to write something again.”

Freddie shakes his head, laughing. “Oh, darling, do let’s leave it at least until we’re on the plane home to start arguing again.”

Freddie tastes of grapes and a startled laugh when Brian kisses him then, pushing aside the plate to pull Freddie closer, cup his face with his hands and hold him tight. He kisses him and kisses him again, and Freddie sinks into it like he’s coming home. He’s coming home.

The last bit of hope Brian was restraining runs loose from his mouth. “I’ve got so much to sort out,” he says, barely a whisper away from Freddie’s mouth. “I need to find a house- furniture- the kids- _god_ there’s so much still to do but…” Somehow it doesn’t feel as daunting as it did a week, a day, hell, six hours ago. “We can get a hotel, we can-” Anything. They can do anything now. Just give them time.

They could go to Paris on the way home. Brian would love to take Freddie to Paris again.

But it’s as if Brian’s words remind Freddie of the life awaiting them outside this villa. “How can we?” He asks, and Brian’s chest thuds. “No, darling, listen to me, I’m serious. How can we ever go back to how it was before? After everything we’ve done to each other-” A quick flash of a sad smile. “There were times when I could quite easily have hated you, dear.”

Brian gives the thought the weight it needs, examines it in his hands. “It’s allowed to be a little complicated.” Freddie snorts and he smiles. “Alright, _very_ complicated.”

“The others?” Freddie counters. “The things I said - to Roger especially…” He catches sight of the eyebrow that quirks without Brian’s control. “Oh, please, you gave as good as you got, darling, make _no_ mistake.” It’s slightly cheeky and it’s slightly awful and Brian can’t help but laugh.

He collects Freddie’s hands in his, rubs a soothing thumb along the bones in his wrists. “They’ll get over it,” He promises, even though he shouldn’t.

The three of them haven’t seen much of each other this past year, all retreating to their separate corners because to meet up as the three of them rather than the four of them was to accept something none of them wanted. Roger tried, in the beginning, calling round with beers or inviting Brian out with him and Dom whenever he was in town. But Brian was no company, too miserable, too wracked with guilt, and eventually Roger stopped trying. He doesn’t know if he had any more luck with John, but Brian hopes that he did.

“You and Roger will kiss and make up like always,” he carries on anyway, hoping that if he says it he can make it true. “You might have more trouble with Deaky.”

Freddie’s face blanches but he nods. “And you?

”I thought I’d made my stance quite clear.” But clearly Freddie needs to hear it. He lifts Freddie’s wrists, presses a kiss to each in turn. “I don’t want to go back to how things were before, Fred.”

“You-“

“I want us to be who we should have been from the beginning. No secrets, no lies, just you and me. If you can forgive me for not having always given it to you.”

He wants it better than before, he wants to _be_ better than before, wants them to be better to each other. He wants every piece of Freddie that Freddie will allow him. He wants to treat Freddie the way he should be treated, take him out to fancy dinners and parties then take him home afterwards. He wants to take Freddie home. To their home. If Freddie will let him.

Freddie’s eyes have always been the undoing of Brian, and now they’re dark and sad but Brian thinks he can see his own hope reflected back to him. “Oh, my love,” he says quietly, presses up to kiss the furrow of Brian’s forehead. Brian closes his eyes, receives it like a benediction. “That’s all I ever wanted from you.”

And he kisses Brian like he can sear their mouths together, clutches him close like he can take everything Brian’s promised from him now, and he can because Brian is offering it freely, greedily. He kisses Freddie back like it’s enough and maybe it can be, maybe it is.

They stay in Italy another two days.

Freddie sends Brian out to collect his shirt from the rose bushes outside, then complains at the hole snagged in the front. Together they venture out into the small town, still smelling of sex and happiness, and the cobbled streets are so empty that Brian can walk around with his hand in the back pocket of Freddie’s jeans, push him into alcoves and doorways to steal delirious kisses. Brian replaces Freddie’s jeans, then buys them enough clothes and food to last, along with a small box from the pharmacy.

Freddie finds it in the midst of disparaging Brian’s fashion sense, pulling out the garish shirts he picked up with so much vigour that the box flies out and spins on the floor.

He stills, mid-laugh, at the sight, bends and collects up the twelve pack of condoms, then stares at it for so long that Brian almost wishes he could hide it away and pretend it never happened. But he’s done enough of that, too much of that, so he stands and he waits.

“You-” Freddie’s voice cracks a little but he swallows, straightens his shoulders then brings his gaze to Brian’s. It sets Brian alight, the intensity of his stare. “You think you know what you’re doing here, dear?” He asks, voice the kind of hard that’s really armour.

“I’ll have all of you,” Brian says simply. “Or not at all.”

Freddie shakes so hard that Brian steps close to hold him, does his best to hold him together as Freddie gives over to whatever emotion he’s been holding himself back from. When Freddie kisses him it’s with wet cheeks and a fierceness that Brian does his best to catch, soothe, before he takes Freddie to bed and makes good on his promise.

Afterwards, he takes Freddie down to the villa’s private dock and they swim in the warm turquoise sea. Brian imagines that the salt water on their naked bodies is a rebirth, a sanctification of their sins, until Freddie splashes him so hard that he chokes on the water, then Brian has to retaliate by dragging a screeching Freddie under the water with him.

That night, their skin still sticky with the dried salt and peeling slightly since neither of them thought to pick up suncream, while Freddie sleeps, Brian picks his way carefully out of bed and to the phone downstairs. It takes two attempts, but eventually he’s telling a bleary and half-asleep Roger, “I’ve got him. He’s coming home.”

There’s a long, loaded silence, then, “About fuckin’ time.”

“Tell John,” Brian instructs, then hangs up the phone and returns to Freddie.

They spend the next day by Brian’s pool, alternating between long languid conversations the kinds of which they’ve not truly had in years, utterly content silence, and screwing under the hot Italian sun. Brian relearns the lines of Freddie’s body, the texture of his laugh, the way to just be next to him and love him like burning. It’s a reeducation in loving each other, and they take the time they need to find their way back again.

But they know when it’s time to leave.There’s a life waiting for them to live it and Brian’s itching to begin. He whispers this into Freddie’s hair as they stand on the balcony, their meagre belongings packed up in the shitty rental car Brian hopes will take them all the way to the closest airport, Freddie pressed against his chest like an anchoring.

“We could always come back,” Freddie says, turning in his arms. His breath shakes. Brian feels it against his neck.

He hums vaguely, but already Brian knows he won’t be returning to Italy again. He’ll never be able to sell the villa, but thinks he won’t be able to walk through these halls without remembering everything that was said between them.

“What if-” Freddie starts, but stops himself. They’ve been over every _what if_ , examined every possibility and complication that could be coming their way. There’s nothing else to say that they won’t be able to deal with together when it comes.

“Come on,” Brian says and kisses Freddie soft. He pulls him through the house and out into the sun once again. Freddie follows him, hand in his. “All that’s left is to leave.”

 


End file.
